What I Thought Was True (14 page)

ber fishing boot of Grandpa Ben’s, apparently running out of

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words. “I’d like to . . .” He shut his eyes, as if in pain.

I waited, but after a second he just said, “Never mind. The

hell with it.”

And turned, crunching back across the clamshells to the car.

Did I use Spence? Did he use me? I don’t know. In the end, did

it even matter? We’d just been bodies. Arms, legs, faces, breath.

Just sex
. No big deal.

Still.

Explaining that night was never going to be easy. Not then,

to Cass. Not tonight, to Nic. Not ever, to myself.

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Cass is apparently fighting with a bush when I pass him the

next day on my way home. He’s got hedge clippers and is

whacking away, making a big dent in the side of one of Mrs.

Cole’s arborvitaes. It’s completely lopsided now. As I watch, he

stops, takes a few steps back, then starts making a dent on the

other side. The bush, which used to resemble an
O,
now looks like the number 8. After a few more unfortunate trims it looks

like a
B
.

I can’t help it. I stop, cup my hands around my mouth, and

call, “You should quit while you’re ahead—it’s only getting

worse.”

He turns off the hedge clippers, “What?”

I repeat myself, louder, because Phelps, Mrs. Cole’s terrier, is

yapping away inside the house, scritching his claws frantically

on the screen door. Cass sighs. “I know. I keep thinking I’ll fix

it and . . . I don’t want this woman to come out and have a

heart attack. She seems a little high-strung. Screamed when I

knocked on the door to ask where the outdoor plug was.”

I study him. He seems to have shaken off our weirdness

from yesterday, and the whole Henry Ellington . . . thing.

He takes a few steps back again, tilting his head, scrubbing

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his hand over the hair at the back of his neck. “D’you think

she’d notice if I dug this up and replaced it with another bush?

That may be my only hope.”

“Got a spare arborvitae up your sleeve?” At least today he

actually has sleeves, as in a shirt, thank God. I open the gate and walk in. “Maybe if you just trimmed down that top part

and made the other side a little flatter?”

He revs up the hedge clippers, begins trimming on the wrong

side. I wave my hands in a stop motion. Cass flips the off button

again. “What now?”

“Not
that
side! You’re making it worse again. Just hand it to me.”

“No way. This is
my
job.”

“Yes, and boiling the lobsters was my job. You had no prob-

lem barging in there.”

“Christ almighty. Can we move on from the lobsters, Gwen?

You honestly have this much of an issue with accepting help?”

“I’m pretty sure the issue at the moment is
you
not being able to accept help. Just give me the clippers.”

“Fine,” Cass says. “Enjoy.” He hands the clippers to me, pull-

ing his hands back quickly and shoving them in his pockets.

Then he studies my face. “Actually, you do seem to be enjoy-

ing yourself. Too much. You
are
planning to use those on the hedge, right? Not on me?”

“Hmmm. That hadn’t occurred to me.” I turn the hedge

clippers on and look him over speculatively. He bends down,

wrenches the plug out of the wall.

“Hey! I was trying to help.”

“I didn’t like the look on your face. It made me worry for

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the existence of my future children. I haven’t forgotten that

butter knife that was the only thing standing between you and

Alex Robinson singing soprano.”

“I just never thought I’d see you be inept at anything. Haven’t

you done this before?”

“Hey, I’m not inept. I’m just not . . . ept yet. And since

you’re so curious, no, mowing our lawn is my only landscap-

ing experience.”

“Did Marco and Tony know this when they hired you?
Why

did they hire you?”

“I don’t know. My dad talked to them first, and when I came

in they just asked if I minded hard work and being outdoors

most of the day. I figured I’d be mowing. Period. Maybe some

weeding. I didn’t think I’d be planting and trimming and tying

bushes to fences and I sure as hell didn’t think I’d be raking the beach.”

I’ve plugged in the hedge clippers again and now I turn

them on and start in on the top of the hedge. “You can always

quit,” I shout over the whir.

“I don’t quit. Ever,” he shouts back. “I think you’re making

it worse.”

I lop off a few more branches, then run the clippers down,

making the bumpy side as flat as the other. Then I stand back.

It definitely looks better. I move over to the matching arbor-

vitae on the other side of the steps and start working on that to

make it look the same.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Cass calls. “I can do the

rest.”

“No way, Jose. Clearly you can’t be trusted.”

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This sentence drops between us like a brick shattering on

the pavement.

Again I get a flash of his white-knight rescue from Spence’s

party. Granted, a cranky white knight, but still . . .

Jaw tight, Cass walks over to the Seashell truck, pulls a plastic

bin out of the back, and starts scooping the severed branches

into it. I buzz the sides of the other tree flat.

“
There
you are,
garota bonita
!” Grandpa Ben calls. He’s trudg-ing along up the road with his mesh bag full of squirming blue

crabs, holding Emory’s hand and dragging the unenthusias-

tic Fabio by his leash. Em is in his bathing suit, clutching a

sandy-looking Hideout and looking sleepy. “I bring you your

brother. Lucia is working tonight and I have the bingo.”

“Superman! Hello, Superman! It Superman,” Emory tells

Grandpa, his face lighting up.

“Hey there, Superboy,” Cass says easily. My brother runs

over and immediately throws his arms around Cass’s leg. And

kisses him. On the knee. Cass seems to freeze for an instant,

then pats Em’s bony little back.

“Hey buddy. Hello, Mr. Cruz.”

“Superman,” Emory repeats. Clearly, for him, all that needs

saying. He gives Cass his shiniest smile and plunks down in the

grass, nuzzling Hideout against his neck.

“I will not lie,
querida
. He’s been cranky.
Está com pouco de
bug today. We got ice cream, but no. No help.” Grandpa Ben

pulls his watch out of his pants pocket. It’s not a pocket watch,

but he keeps it there, out of habit, afraid, from his fishing days, that it would snag on something. “I need to go now. I get there

late, Paco stacks the deck.”

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“Where’s Nic?” I’ve babysat for the last four nights that

Mom has worked late. So, Nic’s turn.

“The swimming,” Grandpa Ben says. “Be good for your sis-

ter,
coelo
.”

Emory ignores him, focused on Cass coiling up the exten-

sion cord.

“Which beach?” Cass calls. “I’m pretty much done here.”

“Sandy Claw.”

“Huh.” Cass finishes wrapping and loops the cord between

his shoulder and his elbow, which shows off his biceps nicely.

I think he’s even fitter than before—already. Bring on the Yard

Boy Workout. “Maybe I’ll get on down there and give him a

run for his money. What do you think, Gwen? Want to come

check out my form?”

He flashes the dimples at me.

Oh dear Lord.

I wrinkle my nose, toss my hair back. “I couldn’t care less

about your form.”

“Right,” Cass says. “I can tell.”

I examine his face sharply, but his tone is completely inno-

cent.

Maybe it’s the total contrast between the terse, tense Cass on

that March night, when I had no way to read him, no compass

at all, and the sunny, smiling one now. Maybe I’m just light-

headed from the heat . . . But I give him the tiniest of smiles.

And get a full-on grin in return.

I tell myself it’s okay to feed Em fast when we get home, use

those nasty frozen dinners Mom relies on, Emory doesn’t

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mind, and Grandpa and I despise, dumping crinkled French

fries out on a baking pan, letting Em consider ketchup a veg-

etable. I assure my conscience I’m not hurrying through the

shower, or Emory through his bath, for any reason at all.

If there were an Olympics for kidding yourself, I’d take

home the gold.

Then Em doesn’t
want
to go to the beach. He’s sleepy, wants to be lazy, cuddle. He settles himself on Myrtle, Fabio collapsed and drooling heavily on his thigh. He points at the screen. “Clicker.”

“Fresh air,” I say firmly.

“Clicker. Pooh Bear. Dora.”

“Jingle shells. Boat shells. Hermit crabs,” I counter.

Emory’s lower lip juts out. “Seen today already,” he says.

“Superman?” I coax, finally.

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I don’t have much hope that Nic or Cass will still be there when

I get to the beach. Em wouldn’t walk, so I had to plunk him,

Hideout, and Fabio into our old Radio Flyer wagon and drag

it down the hillside. Not really drag, more like run ahead of it,

because it picks up speed as we descend, and Fabio remembers

being a puppy and hops out, nipping at my heels and yelping

all the way down.

My cousin and Cass are apparently facing off at the end of

the pier, ready to dive again. Viv is sitting on one of the woo-

den pilings, counting down on Nic’s watch as Em and Fabio

and I walk out.

“To the breakwater again?” Cass asks, breathing hard, hands

on his bent knees.

“The far one this time,” Nic answers. He swipes his arm

across his forehead, then shakes his head, sending droplets of

water flying. He squints and points at the second wall of rocks,

blue-black, jagged edged, barely visible above the waves. Cass

nods, shortly.

Viv shields her eyes, evidently on shark watch.

“Want me to count off?” I call. “On five, four—” And Nic

dives before I say “three.” Cass shoots a
what-the-hell
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at me, then he’s in. We watch Nic’s arms flashing. Viv’s shout-

ing, “Go Nico, go Nico!” Fabio leaps around, yipping, happy

to be part of the action. I feel this impulse to cheer for Cass.

Against my own cousin? Blood may be thicker than chlorine,

but hormones seem to scramble the equation.

“Go!” I shout loudly, not quite sure for whom. “Go!” I shout

it again, drowning out my thoughts. Drowning out another

memory of the summer Cass spent at Seashell, the first year

we were all old enough to swim out to the breakwater alone.

Of him, little-boy skinny, standing on the rocks, pumping his

fist in triumph, slapping Nic’s back, high-fiving me, and then

doing his ear-blushing thing, missing his two front teeth.

Nic
is
ahead, thanks to his unfair advantage.

Then there’s another splash, a sharp bark from Fabio, and

I whirl around. Em’s not there. Em is not there and I didn’t

put his life jacket on. For the first time ever, I forgot. I wasn’t holding on to his hand or leg or a fold of his shirt, which I do

even when I
have
put a life jacket on. I’m hurling myself off the pier in an instant, Viv’s screams echoing in my ears.

It’s high tide.

High tide. Emory’s in his Superman pajamas, which are

darkish blue, the color of water. I’m swishing my arms around

wildly, grabbing for his fingers, his hair, his big toe, anything.

Coming up for a choking breath, then plunging down again,

clawing through the cold depths. Then I touch warm skin, his

leg, oh thank God, yank him toward me, his head bumping up

against my shoulder, hauling us to the surface with an inhale

that sounds like a sob. He’s coughing . . . he’s coughing, so

he’s breathing, but he immediately starts to cry. I’m towing

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him toward the steps that lead from the deep water to the pier,

gasping into his hair.

Then I feel someone beside me.

“You got him,” Cass says, warm hand around my waist.

“He’s safe. You got him. Breathe. Both of you.” Emory howls

louder and I can hear Viv gabbling, “Oh my God oh my God.”

This is my fault. I looked away at the wrong time. I didn’t put a

life jacket on him. Cass has his hand on my back now, steering

us up the steps.

Viv is waiting with a towel and I wrap Em in it and gather

him into my lap. “Em, talk!” I order. “Say something.”

“Hideout!” Emory bursts into even stormier tears. “
My

Hideout. He wanted to see the water. He drownded.”

Cass turns to me for clarification.

“Stuffed animal,” I say, combing my fingers over Em’s scalp,

feeling for bumps. He keeps crying, shoving my hand away.

“What color?” Cass peers into the water. “Brown? Black?

Blue?”

“Red.”

“Perfect.” He dives back in, so cleanly there isn’t even a ripple.

Nic has reached the steps now and hurries up, eyes worried.

“Dude, you cool?”

“Hideout!” wails Emory. Vivien, Nic, and I debate taking

him to the ER just to have him checked. Teary-eyed Vivien and

I are in favor, Nic tells us we’re overreacting.

“Remember the time you fell off Uncle Mike’s boat when

you were, like four? You were
fine
. Same thing.”

“But it’s Emory,” I say. Em was born so early, at twenty-

eight weeks, a fragile two pounds. Then when he was four he

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had viral meningitis and a fever of 106. Whenever he gets a

cold in winter it always, inevitably turns into bronchitis. Pretty much everything that could go wrong does go wrong. I’m

clutching him so tightly that he stops sobbing to say, “Ow.

Be nice.”

“Here you go, buddy.” Cass has climbed up the ladder from

the water to the pier thrusting out a bedraggled, waterlogged

stuffed hermit crab.

Em’s tears turn off, his lips part, then wing into a smile. “Saved him. Superman saved Hideout.” He snatches the crab from Cass,

hugs it, squeezing out a bucketload of water, fingers its head for bumps, kisses it, then scootches over and puts his hand on Cass’s

cheek, petting him the way Mom does to Em himself.

Cass clears his throat, shuffles one foot on the wet wooden

slats of the pier. “No problem, man. He might need a little

CPR—and a dryer—but he’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Somers. Quick thinking.” Nic nods at him, chin

lifted, arms crossed.

“Not as quick as your footwork on the dive,” Cass says

coolly. Nic’s jaw tightens.

“Badly played, man,” Cass continues. “Very un-CGA.”

Nic’s face shades stormy. He looks quickly at Viv, then me,

then down at the pier.

“Three-second advantage,” he scoffs at last, like
Whatever
.

“Yeah. Exactly.” Cass shakes his hair out of his eyes, which

seem a slightly more wintery sea blue than usual.

“Jeez, enough with the pissing contest,” I say. “Let’s get Em

home.” Nic takes him out of my arms and looks at me, face

impassive. I give his back a little nudge toward shore, almost

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a shove. He nods, a motion so small it’s almost undetectable,

walks off. Vivien trails, wringing out Hideout, ocasionally

glancing back over her shoulder at us, standing so close we’re

each dripping water on each other. She cocks her head at me,

then hurries after Nic and Em.

I touch Cass’s arm quickly. “Thank you.”

“No big deal.” Then he turns to me with a straight face.

“But, hey, was that a stuffed
hermit crab
?”

I laugh, and it feels so good, unknotting the tension that’s

been snarled in my stomach for days. “I know—it’s like a bunch

of toymakers were in a boardroom somewhere, snapping their

fingers, and said, ‘I know! A crustacean line! Just what every

kid wants.’ But Em loves him. So really . . . thanks.”

“You did the more important save, Gwen. Keep this up and

I might have to forfeit my superhero cape. Or talk to Coach

about that Life Guard of the Year award you earned back in

March.”

The Polar Bear Plunge.

For a beat, it just lies there, like a glove thrown down. Smack.

Then I meet his eyes. I don’t know what mine are saying, but

after a moment, he looks away, up to the sky, then down at me,

lips parted. I follow his gaze to my chest, where of course my

too-tight tank top is completely plastered. White. Practically

transparent.

That’s what this is about?

I snap my fingers. “My face is up here.”

Cass reaches for his towel, now an interesting shade of mot-

tled pink, wraps it tightly around his waist. “Um, sorry. Are

you cold, by any chance, Gwen?”An infinitesimal smile, just

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enough to bring out one dimple, pulls at the corner of his

mouth.

I groan. “You have no idea what a pain these are. Since I was

twelve I’ve gotten this! Like I’m boobs attached to a faceless

woman. Sometimes I just want to take ’em off and hand them

to whoever can’t be bothered to see the rest of me and say,

‘Here. I think this is what you’re really after.’”

Cass flips his hair back. “And we were doing so well there

for a second. I didn’t mean to objectify you or disrespect

your personhood. You look”—he throws his hand toward

me—“like you look. Sue me for noticing.” He meets my eyes.

“By the way—just let me give your little brother a few lessons.

Otherwise, you’re going to have a heart attack worrying, or an

ulcer blaming yourself for not being on guard twenty-four/

seven. And let’s make tutoring happen. At this point you’re just

making bullshit excuses. I need this, okay? I need to stay on

the team.”

“Why is that so important to you?” I ask. “It’s not like you’re

applying to the Coast Guard. You’ll get into whatever college

you want.”

He shakes his head. Looks at me. “You have no idea what I

want. None.” His voice has abruptly gotten hard.

I take a deep breath, shut my eyes, exhale. “You’re right. I

don’t. I don’t know what you want. You did a good thing and

I’m being a jerk.”

I’m relieved to see both dimples groove deep. “Whoa. Is

that an actual apology? I forgive you. If you forgive me for

standing in front of a girl like you and letting my eyes wander.

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My mom would be pissed with me.”

I have only the haziest of memories of Cass’s mom from

that one summer. Adults you don’t know well all seem blend

together when you’re little—someone big who talks about

things you don’t understand that don’t sound interesting. No

memory at all whether she was tall or short, blond or dark. Or

even kind or not. I try to picture her at meets and I can’t. I can just see Cass’s dad cheering.

“She’s a therapist,” he adds. “Specializes in empowering

girls and women. She’s written books about it.
How the Patri-

archy Silences the Female Voice
. That was her best seller. Oh, and
Men, Why Do We Bother?
”

“Ouch,” I say. “Really?”

“Yep
.
Mom doesn’t like to leave any feeling undelved . . .”

He wrinkles his nose, squinting. “Is that a word?”

“Close enough,” I say. Try harder to remember Cass’s mom.

Picture her in hemp clothing with wild hair, fingers tented.

Then with hair drawn back into a stern bun, power suit on.

Neither seems right.

“Sometimes family dinners are like therapy sessions. I feel

like we should all be lying around on couches while my mom

over-explores our psyches. ‘How does having pizza again make

you fee-el, Cass? I think we need to examine your broccoli

issues, Bill.’”

I’m still stuck on
Men, Why Do We Bother?
I don’t want Cass to have some uptight, disapproving family. It doesn’t fit with

my image of his dad from that summer, from my memories of

feeling comfortable running into their house, never bothering

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to kick off my shoes outside the door. “And she wound up

with three sons,” I say.

“Yup, I was the one last try for a girl. I would have been

Cassandra . . . you know, after the girl no one listened to in the
Iliad
. Who died.”

“Instead you got named after the cool guy in an iconic clas-

sic movie.”

“Yeah, well, he got offed in the end too.”

“Well, my mom named me after the world’s most famously

unfaithful woman.”

Cass flinches, then looks out to sea. “I’d better get home. I’ve

got this—family thing tonight—and you’d better go dry off.

I’ll put together a program for Emory.”

He strides down the pier without looking back. I scan the

parking lot, half expecting to see Spence’s car idling there like

the other day. It’s not. But it might as well be, because Spence

was right there between us.

Again.

And we were doing so well there for a second.

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